La Reale de France by Ferrus Manus - Heller - 1/75 - the Sun King's finest ship

[Ferrus Manus]

Sorry for the delay in posting a reply. This is the current progress on the foresail, over the past week: 

I got the sheet belayed, the two pairs of martnets and buntlines in and belayed, and the reef tackle done. Up next is the clew line (and the main top toggles as a whole), the parrel lines/tackles, and a bunch of rope coils. 

Edited September 24 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

Another issue: the painting I have largely based my decisions off of does not depict the ship with swivel guns, and neither do the diagrams in the Landstrom book. For this reason, I will instead be covering the railings with waistcloth. This should in theory make the railings less offensive to look at. The waistcloth will be a simple strip of red-painted silkspan, nothing fancy. 

[Ferrus Manus]

Hello boys, I'M BAAAAACKK!!!

 

I apologize for taking almost 2 months off of this project. I decided to work on two off-forum small projects during that time, a small tugboat and a tiny oyster lugger. Anyways, yesterday I managed to get the mainsail penciled in, cut out and riddled with the holes it will need for rigging, and bent to the main yard. I glued the yard to the mast and temporarily rigged part of the main lift. 

I temporarily put the ship's smaller boat onto the boat gallows so I could see how the boat and the sail interact. The boat ever so slightly fouls the sail, but I wanted the main yard to sit lower on the mast because otherwise it looked too high up off the deck. 

I probably won't rig the halyard until the reef points, blocks, and some other stuff is put in. 

[Ferrus Manus]

I also found a display spot right above the work area on a shelf. That means the ship will be looked at from the bottom up, which will expose some of the exquisite detail work to the eye, and hide some of the uglier deck details and the railings assuming I put waistcloth on. This also means I might be able to put an awning on the back of the ship without obscuring the gold supports and frame timbers. 

Edited November 12 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

Another issue I would like to address right now instead of later is the oars. Multicolored oars are relatively rare in Reale models (and galley models in general). I could either paint them blue, white, red or any kind of wood color in their entirety. I will likely end up going with what's shown in the painting, which is dark blue oars in their entirety. 

[Ferrus Manus]

The fore parrels and associated tackles: 

How I set up the fore and main halyards and associated gear: 

many modelers forget to add a realistic amount of line in their rope coils. In reality, these ships would have been a mess of rigging on deck. 

 

 

Edited November 14 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

Nice work, mate. Looking good.

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

My last bits of progress on this model were the main tack lines and the main parrels. 

[Louie da fly]

So many ropes!

 

Steven